There once was a ship washed up some miles down the shore from the town I lived in during my high school years. It was not such a popular place for tourists or anything. People would stop here on their way to someplace busier or more famous and entertaining. There is a small place where the land juts out a little into the ocean; it's a nice little spot to sit and watch the sunset. Someone crafty had built a pretty little bench out of driftwood and old fence posts.
You could watch the sunset. I used to do that when I lived there and it was only a half a mile walk from my house.
But that ship, that creepy lump of rust, would catch my eye if I looked to the south and sour the mood.
The paint on the ship was white and dark blue. Time had pecked holes in the thinner parts of the metal surface, making numerous weeping holes of rust. Masts stood up like needles, entangled by some ropes and wires.
The waves, brazen in the twilight, lapped at the sides and flooded through the holes in the side of the hull. Every time the ocean poured in and out of those wounds, I always thought I saw someone standing in the darkness as the water flushed itself out.
I've heard a few different things about this lonely ship. An old police officer told me it was a fishing boat. By the way, he told me it sounded like there was not much to it. I felt like I was weird or crazy for thinking there was more to it than that since my skin crawled every time I saw it.
Sophomore year I actually started to talk to my classmates and make friends. I was a shy kid back then so it took me a while to get comfortable around them. I made friends with a guy named Francis, and, living in this town all his life, told me the story of the fishing boat. Apparently, he was lucky enough to read the captain's log. His grandfather, a cop at the time, kept a copy of it for some reason. The whole thing "fascinated" him, Francis told me.
He heard the crew was out one hot June day and they caught something heavy in their net. They pulled it up and, half-buried in sandy seaweed, there was the tail fin of a large fish. One fisherman, uncovering the rest of the big fish, screamed and fell on his rump when he realized the torso of a woman sprouted from the fish half. Her green scales glittered like dew-wet grass and her hair was as blue as sapphires.
The whole crew stopped what they were doing just to see the creature caught in their net. The creature seemed lifeless, however, and showed no signs of breathing or anything. One of the crewmen, who was referred to as "Drum", a man from another country, was horrified with the catch. He said it "bad luck" and that, what he called a "Sea Lily," would curse them. He made a move to toss it back into the water, but the others stopped him, saying they should bring it back with them, for reasons of legacy and possibly receive some kind of incentive for scientific research.
The rest of the crew ridiculed him at first, but they too got bad feelings about the bizarre creature later on. Within hours, the crew was divided. Some say the onboard strife is what kept the crew away from home for days. The foreigner, and some of the crew that sided with him, tried to stop the ship from returning, threatening violence against the captain. However, others believed, they did try to return back, but for some reason, could not find the shore, though they did not trek to far from home in the first place.
The captain's log talks about a "thick fog accompanied by whispers and lies" surrounding them, something that never happens around here, especially in the middle of the summer.
It also talks about that after five days drifting in the sea, after three crewmen had disappeared, the Sea Lily was wrapped in the net, carefully placed in a wooden box, and stored below. They took great, great care not to touch scale nor skin, for, as Drum warned them to "be free from her seductive touch and song." Those who did not heed his warning, Drum explained solemnly, were the unfortunate three that went missing. They sealed the box, hammering nails into the lid.
On the morning of the sixth day, the captain found one of his crewmen dead in a barrel. He and the rest of the crewmen suspected Drum as the murder. They no longer feared the superstition, for they thought the only threat was him. 719Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7VmxDgVV6Z
They did not wait for their return to civilization to get justice, however. An entry of the captain's log, written with a hand so angry, he slightly tore the paper, read: 719Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2dm0ZOuaCo
"Sinner. Killer. Liar. We threw him into the sea. He begged and begged for his life until the sea claimed him. Sinner. Killer. Liar"
But the slayings did not stop. They continued until, on the ninth day, only the captain and two of his crewmen were left. A raging, freezing storm had forced them to huddle in the cabin. A strange harmony seemed to settle between the survivors. One crewman, driven mad, believed he attacked and killed the crew while he walked in his sleep. Weeping, he begged the captain to bind him, hand and foot, with rope, so is not to cause harm. The other trusted the captain with all his heart and the captain felt the same about him.
On the tenth day, the summer storm raged on. On this day, the captain's entry read:
" ... Never have I been this cold. My fingers are numb as I write this. I hold my crewmen close to me to share the warmth, even the one who calls himself the killer ... I am afraid. I feel like the ship will collapse ... I am cold."
On the eleventh day, the summer storm refused to relent. The captain's entry on this day read:719Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡroDJt21s0T
" ... We are going to die. We have been shut in here all day. No one is coming but death. To my left, Harold cries loudly and to my right, bound-up Isaac laughs and laughs ... All I wish is to hold my sweet Molly in my arms once more."
The twelfth day held the last entry. The captain takes on somewhat of a jollier tone and writes:
" ... The gulls are hoot happily. The skies are clear, and the sun shines brightly to warm my skin. The catch is rich and plentiful. The Sea Lily sings to me. The Sea Lily calls me. "
Francis also tells me that on those days, out there where the fishermen were supposed to be, other sailors swore they saw no such weather conditions. It was sunny for all those days, but neither of them could say they saw the ship that held the dying crew.
Only after a month of the incident did the ship appear, damaged and stuck on the shore. No bodies were found on board, not even the one said to be found in a barrel. They did find the wooden box, presumably of the Sea Lily, however. The lid hung on by one nail, and in the box was a large wine bottle, corked and holding something light within. The contents were the captain's log, seemingly ripped out of his diary, rolled up, and sealed in the glass.
I drove up recently to the old town. A week after I graduated from college, I hear Francis was getting married, so I went back to attend the wedding.
The ship was gone. Though it frightened me a little, the shore felt emptier without it. I asked Francis about it and he said a freak storm last year in February must have taken the old rust bucket farther and deeper into the ocean.
We reminisced, and he made fun of me on the day he told me the story about the creepy fishing boat. I chuckled and admitted I almost wet myself when he told me all about it. Francis clapped me on the back and told me he didn't believe the curse of the Sea Lily, and that the captain, Jacob Rowls, was rumored to of had "a screw loose," since he lost his daughter, Molly, in a house fire.
We drank and talked of happier things and by midnight I told Francis I was off to bed. He prepared the guest room for me to sleep in for the night. Though I laid down for about half an hour, I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about that old ship. Francis's house was close to that place with the driftwood bench.
I'd have to leave tomorrow because I had urgent business back home to take care of, so I thought, while I'm here, why not sit out there for a while. Never once did I see the moon on the waves and feel the night breeze while I was there, now was an opportunity.
The bench was still there, though a nail had loosened and fell leaving one armrest to hang off the side uselessly. I sat down and drank the beer I slipped out of Francis's house with.
Maybe it was the beer that did it or my lack of sleep still getting at me from finals week or something, but I could have sworn I saw something in the water.
A woman, half-submerged, waved at me. When I stood up and stepped forward to get a closer look, it turned away and dove, a glimmering tail fin splashed a goodbye.
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